Now that the ACC has accepted Pitt and Syracuse into the ACC the discussion moves to what this means going forward. The first thing that immediately jumps out to me is that, in stark contrast to the last expansion, this is expansion significantly improves the basketball side of the ACC. With 4 of the last 9 National Titles, and 4 different teams who have been ranked #1 in the last 3 years, the ACC will clearly be the best basketball conference in the country, and as Gary Parrish notes, it is not even close.
So what does this mean? I’ll let Doc and THF handle it from a football perspective, but from the basketball point-of-view, there are several questions that immediately come to mind.
First, is this it, or is there more to come?
I can’t claim to have any more knowledge than any other fan, but I would still have to guess that the answer is no. The idea of the ACC, SEC, Big 10 and Pac 10 all expanding to create four 16-team mega conferences has been a rumor for a while, and I don’t see how this move makes that possibility any less likely. Who would those teams be? Well, that rumor mill is just starting to churn, but to me, the two teams that would make the most sense historically and geographically would be South Carolina (former ACC member, solid rivalry with Clemson) and UConn (bitter rival of both Syracuse and Pitt, geographical rival with BC, and a nice little history with Duke to boot). I have to imagine that South Carolina would be hesitant to leave what is sure to be a growing SEC, but if the SEC expands into Texas, maybe not. UConn, on the other hand, would jump at an offer I am guessing. And as THF mentioned earlier, Rutgers is another interesting possibility, as it would allow the ACC to dive deeper into the NYC market, there is the existing, recent history between the UNC and Rutgers football and basketball teams, and it would provide Duke with an additional home game each year.
Getting back to the the likely 14-team conference, what is going to happen to scheduling?
I can think of three possible scenarios:
- An unbalanced 16-game schedule. This would be the easiest answer. Each team would play the other 13 members of the league once, and three other teams in a home-and-home.
- An unbalanced 18-game schedule. Would teams be willing to give up 2 non-conference
winsgames? Hard to say, but expanding to an 18-game schedule would allow for each team to have 5 home-and-homes, and as we saw with last year’s Big East, winning conference games in a conference as good as the ACC will be goes a long way towards getting bubble teams into the Tournament (I am talking to you, Seth Greenberg.) - Two, 7-team divisions. In this scenario, each team would play a home-and-home with the other six teams in its division, plus another 4 teams from the other division. I doubt this would happen, if for no other reason than that there is something inherently wrong with the idea of going through an entire college basketball season without playing every team in the conference at least once.
Of the three, I definitely like option 2 the best. Let’s be honest, a lot of the games that UNC (and most elite programs) play in December often leave a little (lot?) to be desired. Sprinkling in another conference game or two in between Thanksgiving and Christmas would be a welcome change, in my opinion.
And what about the ACC Tournament?
Well, that could be tricky. Ideally, the conference would keep the tournament format the same and only invite the top twelve teams to participate. Unfortunately, money, and a misguided sense of “fairness,” will probably lead the league to want to include everyone. In this case, the first possibility would be to give the top two teams a bye and have the other 12 teams play on Thursday. On Friday, the #1 seed would play the 8/9-winner, the #2 seed would play the 7/10-winner, the 3/14-winner would play the 6/11 winner, and so on. The obvious flaw in this is that scheduling 6 games on Thursday is probably (definitely) an impossibility, which means that we can expect that, more likely than not, the ACC Tournament with switch to the stupid “double-bye” format the Big East used the last couple of years. And how long do you think it will be before the ACC Tournament is held at Madison Square Garden?
Final thoughts?
Overall, I’m actually less against this expansion than I was the first. While football is sure to remain the tail that wags the dog that is college athletic, it is nice to see the ACC make a move that clearly impacts the conference’s basketball stature more positively than it does its football stature. From a Carolina perspective, it probably will not have too much of an impact, though more trips to the North East might help the Heels re-tap the NYC recruiting market, though as long as Roy is at the helm, recruiting is not something Carolina will need a lot of help with. And from a personal/selfish point-of-view, I’m psyched because I will be able to watch the Heels at least every other year when they come up to stomp on the Orange. Finally, I will be able to show my upstate NY friends what real college basketball looks like! 
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as long as we still play state twice a year I don’t care what happens
totally agree CM–play to your strengths, and right now, football is definitely not the ACC’s gig. Rutgers hoops is on the rise btw. Also, this can’t feel good to Pack fans hoping for that long awaited resurgence. My guess is this move will almost surely insure that Roy’s successor will be outside of the UNC family tree.
btw–still don’t like him personally, but I couldn’t have been more wrong about the Panther’s taking Cam Newton @ #1.
I don’t see USC coming over for a number of reasons, the first being Clemson. By unifying the two SC schools under one conference, Clemson would lose any recruiting leverage, if any, it had over the Gamecocks. It’s the same argument that Florida had towards a possible FSU to SEC move.
The second reason is the multimedia and television rights. The driving force behind conference realignment has and will always be stability. And the driving force behind any stable business is increasing revenue. That revenue comes directly from television rights. By adding USC, it would be very difficult for the ACC to bring in a larger TV contract. Yes, Cuse and Pitt provide a new market that will help that cause. But ESPN, CBS and Fox would pay more to the ACC for a larger market (Conn and NJ possibly) rather than the same (SC).
SEC expansion into Texas shouldn’t have any impact on USC leaving the conference. Estimates are for an 8 million dollar increase in each school’s yearly revenue (from TV contracts) with the addition of A&M. Plus, the only way Texas would be allowed to come to the SEC is if they agreed to the conference’s equal revenue sharing agreement, so the Longhorn Network would be nonexistant in the SEC.
USC also plays in the weak division (SEC East) that won’t change with the addition of Texas schools. They own that division and will continue to do so for years.
The ACC won’t bring in two more teams until OU and OSU leave the Big 12. When that happens, what’s left of the Big 12 and Big East will have to merge together to stay afloat or choose to disband. The ACC has been contacted by over 10 programs in the past three months. I’d put my money on UConn and Rutgers being two of those.
Why do schools have to be in the same conference for football and basketball, anyway? Why not have an ACC football conference, and a NCBC – North Carolina Basketball Conference where the “big four” play each other four times a year, home and home twice? You’d get gonzo TV revenues on that one. No one cares about Miami vs Syracuse in b-ball.
Making conferences separate for specific sports is an interesting idea and from our perspective it would be fun to watch Carolina teams play each other more, but I honestly don’t think it would ever be possible.
Although we don’t care about Cuse/Miami, ESPN does. When ESPN goes to sell it’s commercial inventory to national companies (Budweiser, State Farm, etc.), they will be able to sell that commercial time for much more money because Budweiser understands that there will be at least two markets watching the game, one in Florida and one in NY, that they could advertise to. The more inventory they sell, the more they will pay us to let them broadcast our games.
The revenue brought in from separate contracts would complicate the way it could be distributed across a school’s athletic department. It’s the same reason the ACC doesn’t want to bring in Texas and The Longhorn Network, just from an athletic department perspective.
The way that we try to appease the problem of bad matchups is by separating conferences into divisions. The ACC knows that a Miami/Cuse game would be brutal to watch, so it splits the conference into divisions (North and South), which allows those teams only play each other once a year. This allows us to retain our large TV contract without hurting our schools.
I’ve thought the same thing (different conference lineups for different sports). It would be neat to see UNC, WFU, Duke, NCSU, UVa and Davidson all in the same conference with possibly VaTech and Maryland. Like you said though, grahamzim, all that matters is what ESPN says.
Searcy!
EDIT:
so, DeNorris still playing the Carolina Way…going up in the “pack” on a Hail Mary, and does he knock the ball away? no.
goes up for the catch. and almost had it taken away.
uconn looks to be the next. really strengthening our bcs football profile! here’s hoping wvu is the 16th, and I mean that actually very seriously
With consolidation a done deal, the ACC should be commended for being proactive. Syracuse gives the league a major foothold in the New York market. There are many students and alums in the area. The streets are Orange during the tournament. Boeheim loves NYC point guards.
Adding UConn and Rutgers would be smart geographically as well as financially. Keeping the league anchored on the East Coast is smart.
Jesse Holley!!
1st catches in a football game since 2006 here at UNC.
way to go, Jesse!
When I heard that Pitt &Syracuse are coming in it got me thinking.
Add a few more Yankee schools & split the 18-20 team conference down the middle into two divisions “ACC North” & “ACC South.” Put as many schools in the southern division as possible that were in the original ACC before the recent money grab expansion blew up the league. This is a sneaky way to get an approximation of the old ACC with its rivalries back in division form.
The teams in each division would play the teams in their division every year and play teams in the other division on a rotating basis.
There would be two simultaneous ACC basketball division (North & South) tournaments at different venues with the winners of each division playing in a super final game for all the marbles. In football the teams with the best records in each division would play in a championship game. That’s the way the big twelve has been doing it for football.
WVA is Pitt’s big rival. I know West Virginia is not a big market and the school is only so-so, but you get a team that has instant rivalries with Pitt, Maryland, VPI and Virginia, and that is good in both basketball and football and only 2 hours from DC. Anyone remember Jerry West?
This was a clear move for ACC survival. But, in making this move the ACC adds nothing to building a football brand. And we have to remember football is where the money is (huge growth potential). Basketball revenues have pretty much reached a plateau. In addition, SU will soon have a coaching change and Pitt did not make their hot property coach very happy with this move. Short term on the basketball side great move, five years from now could get very dicey. But expect plenty of 9pm and neutral side games to grow NY TV market.
Also, some will say they have added TV markets, when you hear that the person speaking does not know the landscape. The money is in having your own TV network on the basic cable tier. As an example the B1G Network makes a 36 cent profit on every cable box in their geographic footprint every month. Or we could look at how the PAC?? is building it’s regional networks and adding teams to control the geographic footprint.
Repeat…
I am a football fan in a basketball fan state, but I would welcome UConn and reluctantly accept Rutgers. West Virginia is landlocked and ineligible to join unless the ACC changes its by-laws (and name). If Texas agrees to even distribution of profits and Texas A & M as a partner, I would applaud their inclusion in ACC expansion (and Mack Brown’s continued tradition of losing to FSU).
North: VT, UVA, BC, SU, MD, Pitt, Wake, Duke
South: TX, TX A & M, UNC, NCSU, GT, FSU, Miami, Clemson
Anyone notice that Miami maintains a high academic ranking #38 despite constantly having NCAA violations?
“landlocked” is in the ACC by-laws?
Isn’t Pennsylvania also “landlocked”?
@grahamzim
Wow, where do I begin. It’s very unlikely that any SEC school would leave for the ACC. The SEC rakes in more money than the ACC. Plus, the SEC is a superior football conference.
As far as the absurd idea that USC own’s the SEC East… Hilarious comment. USC is at best the 4th best team in tradition and talent pool in the SEC East. This is likely the best team they’ve ever had. The Cocks are benefiting from down years by Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee. It’s not likely that will continue. Order will be resumed in the next few years.
It was just a few years ago that the SEC East dominated the West. It goes in cycles, but USC isn’t one of the SEC’s elite programs.
If I recall correctly, I cannot type the name John Bunting in a comment on a post. (I guess I’ll see if that’s true in a few seconds.) Can we also get an editing device that transforms USC into SCAR?
…Nevermind…
Sotuh Carolina (please stop calling them USC) has “owned” anyone in anything, except maybe SEC baseball, and certainly not anything in football. Perhaps you were thinking of Florida? or Georgia? or Tenn?
But, to the point, South Carolina is never going to the ACC. NEVER.
I think UConn is the next one in, and a good addition. Why would you need to add Rutgers when you have already taken the NY market with UConn and ‘Cuse? Rutgers can enjoy the A-10. I would take WV because it hs a better overall athletic program and creates more natural rivalries.
Never heard of the landlocked by-laws.
“I am a football fan in a basketball fan state, but I would welcome UConn and reluctantly accept Rutgers. West Virginia is landlocked and ineligible to join unless the ACC changes its by-laws (and name). If Texas agrees to even distribution of profits and Texas A & M as a partner, I would applaud their inclusion in ACC expansion (and Mack Brown’s continued tradition of losing to FSU).
North: VT, UVA, BC, SU, MD, Pitt, Wake, Duke
South: TX, TX A & M, UNC, NCSU, GT, FSU, Miami, Clemson”
First, when did landlocked become part of the ACC bylaws? Secondly, you can crap in one hand and wish for Texas joining the ACC in the other and let’s see which one fills up first. Texas is not joining the ACC EVER, and adding Pitt & Syracuse put the final nail into that coffin. Finally, maybe you meant to type Tech instead of A&M because Texas A&M is going to SEC and is not even a candidate to join the ACC.
I agree with william, WVU has strong natural rivalries within the new 14 member ACC and makes the best geographical since, along with having by far the best combined football and basketball programs remaining on the Big East carcass. UCONN would be a great basketball addition, along with a solid football program, plus shoring up the Northeast corner of the college sports market. Rutgers has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO OFFER, their sports programs are garbage, and anyone who tells you Rutgers brings the NYC market has no clue about ratings or sports in the NYC market in general. UNC basketball gets as many ratings in the NYC market as all of Rutgers supports combined.
Make an offer to UConn and WVU to sure up the East Coast with the first Super Conference before the SEC makes WVU its 14th, 15th, or 16th team.
North: VT,BC,MD,Pit,UConn, SU,WVA, Rutgers (Doormat)
South: UNC, NCSU, Duke, Wake, GT, Miami, Clemson, UVA
^Where is FSU?
If they dont join the SEC, in the South
I have to give some props (whatever that means) for the “landlocked” comment. That was pretty funny, but seriously….
That is a good question. Is a river enough to grant entry into the ACC? I think that is basically what the port of Philadelphia is? By the same token, the uppermost branches of the Potomac River (which flow into the Chesapeake) go into West Virginia as all of us Mid-Atlantic fly fishers know, so that should allow WVU and Pitt to sneak into the conference in spite of the rules governing conference nomenclature.
Also, West Virginia was a member of the old Southern Conference, as was Washington and Lee University, so if WVU doesn’t work, W&L is always an option….
i say we add Hawaii.
^ +1
Say we add UConn and Rutgers (ehh).
What about 4 Sub-divisions of 4 teams each. They could be:
Northeast: UConn, Rutgers, Syracuse, Boston College
Mid-Atlantic: Maryland, Pitt, UVA, VT
Tobacco Road: UNC, Duke, NCSU, Wake
South: FSU, Miami, Clemson, GT
For basketball, you play the other 3 teams in your division twice (home and away each), then you play everyone else once, alternating home games every other year. That’s 18 game schedule, while maintaining some traditions (playing Dook, FarmU and Wake twice every year; UConn and Syracuse could go twice a year too).
For the ACCT, you could give the division winners a bye, eliminate the 4 worst teams and keep the current 12 team format or just 4 best teams (record-wise) get byes and figure out the rest.
Football could be similar, always playing the teams in your division while playing maybe 2 teams from each of the other 3 divisions (add conference game, like Pac10 did before this restructuring stuff got going).
Just an idea to put up.
^i like that Tobacco Road division.
I guess Rutgers and UConn is just if you want to say that you have all the states covered on the East Coast except for Maine, but Maine used to be part of Masachussetts, so….
But then again, West Virginia is actually the true Virginia which accepted the original Constitution and the Founding Fathers and principles, unlike the other Virginia, which decided to secede and establish its own Capitol and fight to ensure its own benighted Confederate principles… Thank God I am from North Carolina and not from Virginia.
I’d much rather have WVU than Rutgers as well, but mainly from a competition standpoint – Rutgers can’t hold a candle to West Virginia, and Bob Huggins would be another big-time name at coach for the ACC to go along with Roy, K, Calhoun, and Boeheim.
Huggins is a man. Let Cincy twist in the wind….
It is strange how a basketball program like UNC ends up, somewhat being manipulated by football, a sport that playes 13 games a year. I think all of the basketball fans on here are on pins and needles attempting not to offend the “football” people who post. Well, with the addition of Pitt and Syracuse, the basketball people have won.
The ACC is now, officially, an academics, basketball and lacrosse, and soccer conference, with football bringing in at least enough to support lacrosse and soccer, Syracuse kicks ****** in lacrosse and half the announcers on television went there, so….
I forgot about Texas A & M being accepted to the SEC, getting old I guess.
Not sure how the coast part works for PA, but WV has no coastline by any stretch of the imagination. I guess if the Big Ten can have 12+ teams…
If the “East Coast” is no longer a concern, why is the list of candidates so short? Why not Kansas, Missouri, or Baylor(before sounding off, yes I know Texas is an Atlantic coast state, but given that Baylor holds a new market for the ACC and currently belongs to an unstable conference, I have been wondering why they have not come up)?
Texas never joining the ACC? I thought Texas had approached the ACC and was rejected? For the record, I do not want Texas in the ACC; they would “probably” push for uneven revenue distribution.